SHARP

Sharp sharp sharp. Referring to the brand, shown in giant red letters on the top of a building near the center of the photo. Very Hong Kongian. All the big electronics manufacturers and other big names have their logos emblazoned in massive neon letters somewhere in Hong Kong. Is it somewhat ironic that SHARP is a bit hazy? Eh.

What’s really working for me here is the building on the left. It’s crisper than everything else shown, and is surprisingly close to me. Everything else is the distant faraway city, but this building… I can almost make out lamps and other stuff in the windows. Also the unknown height (probably 35-50 stories) gives it a largeness that might not be as impressive if it was all shown. Maybe.

Hong Kong doesn’t look like this from very many angles. Here it looks like a sprawling metropolis, dozens of miles across and smoggy until the desert. Buuuut, this is about it. I’m surprised it looks as wide as it does here. It’s really just a thin strip, perhaps a mile or two deep, of buildings between the coast and some very steep mountainous rises. Of course they keep filling in the bay (more flat land) so they can make taller and taller buildings and block the view of the skyscraper that was once on the waterfront.

Whether or not this is deceiving, it does capture the incredibly density of the place. Some parts are chic and very much like Manhattan, fraught with upscale art galleries and new streets and an expat heavy populous. Other parts are incredibly Chinese, most visibly by the outdoor clothes drying (on every window as high as the buildings go), seas of 5’6″ black haired men and women, nothing in English, etc…

I’ll conclude by urging you to absolutely make it out there if you ever can. Perhaps the only place in the world I’d rather live for 6 months than Manhattan.